In a Bloomberg television interview, Sessions, R-Texas, told Al Hunt that Buchanan “has been forthright and brought the information to the committee and to the Department of Justice himself,” and that he has “confidence” in him despite the ongoing investigations.

In December 2010, the Federal Election Commission filed suit against Buchanan’s former car dealership and a former business partner for allegedly reimbursing employees who donated to the congressman’s 2006 and 2008 campaigns with car dealership funds.

Though the FEC didn’t file suit against Buchanan himself, the allegations are now the subject of an investigation by both the Department of Justice and the Office of Congressional Ethics. In July, The Florida Independent published a lengthy sworn deposition given by Buchanan’s former business partner (in which he says Buchanan orchestrated the campaign reimbursements); in September, we posted two voicemails left by Buchanan that reference the scheme.

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee criticized Sessions’ comments in a press release sent, arguing that his defense of Buchanan comes despite Republican Leader Eric Cantor pledging to enforce a “zero tolerance policy” on ethics violations.

“When your Finance Chairman is under criminal investigation for campaign finance schemes, every dollar you raise is suspect,” said the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee’s Jesse Ferguson. “NRCC Chairman Pete Sessions and Republican leadership standing by Congressman Vern Buchanan is only the latest exception in their ‘zero tolerance’ policy for ethics.”

Though support for the U.S. sugar industry runs high among legislators, partly due to the fact that Big Sugar continuously lines the campaign coffers of both Republicans and Democrats, there is a a tangible discontent among industries that use sugar products, who find domestic prices to be too high and, because of quotas, can only import so much.

Enter Rep. Joe Pitts, R-Penn., and Danny Davis, D-Ill., who teamed up to introduce a bill that would protect the other sweet-tooth industries: candy companies that lie within their districts.

“We’ve heard from his constituents that the price of sugar is affecting business, it’s affecting jobs,” says Pitts spokesperson Andrew Wimer, who adds that Davis, the Chicago Democrat cosponsoring the legislation, cites examples of factories that have shut their doors because of the high price of sugar.

The Free Market Sugar Act would repeal the sugar loan program and amend the Farm Security and Rural Investment Act (known as the Farm Bill), perhaps the most important piece of legislation impacting U.S. sugar interests. Written every five years, the Farm Bill helps sugar growers with farm subsidies (which some dismiss as “corporate welfare”) and a series of quotas that tightly control the supply of imported sugar, a benefit to the handful of American sugar producers who pocket around $1 billion in excess profits a year, and a detriment to candy companies that buy U.S. sugar at prices two to three times higher than the global market rate.

Federal legislation also calls for the sugar program to be operated on a no-cost basis, a provision some sugar insiders project will remain for years to come.

“In general, [the Free Market Sugar Act] seeks to reform the sugar program so that the government is not controlling how much sugar is produced and imported,” says Wimer. ”It loosens the controls on production and importation, so that the U.S. price for sugar can be more closely aligned with the world price.”

In addition to amending the sugar price support program, the bill pushes for more transparency in the sugar industry, and an overhaul of how it does business. If enacted, the bill would replace quota import provisions with a tariff rate quota. “Right now the USDA is tightly controlling how much raw cane sugar comes into the U.S.,” says Wimer. “Instead of blanket eliminating quotas, we are modifying it so it’s not as unfair to the current market.”

Pitts and Davis have also recently announced the formation of the Congressional Sugar Reform Caucus, a bipartisan group that also includes Sens. Mark Kirk, R-Ill., and Jean Shaheen, D-N.H.

Representatives from Florida Crystals did not respond to inquiries about the new legislation.

Sheriff Joe Arpaio of Maricopa County, Arizona — known for his controversial immigration enforcement measures and his birther conspiracy theories — was heckled Saturday as he spoke at “Choose Liberty,” an event organized by the Eastern Orlando Tea Party and Americans for Prosperity.

A Phoenix Fox TV station reported that, ”while delivering remarks — some hecklers tried to steal the spotlight by yelling and moving toward the sheriff.”

Sheriff Joe Arpaio (Pic by Gage Skidmore, via Flickr)

The Fox affiliate quotes Arpaio as saying: “I’ve been cracking down on illegal immigration for the last three years, which I now have the Justice Department investigating me, ACLU — everybody’s taking shots at me because of my fight against illegal immigration. And I’m going to continue to do it until the problem is resolved.”

A 2009 Time magazine article points out that Arpaio “has faced numerous complaints from Amnesty International, the ACLU and other rights groups. His office is being investigated by the Justice Department for alleged discrimination and unconstitutional searches and seizures.”

Arpaio recently called on President Obama to release his birth certificate microfiche. According to right-wing site World Net Daily, “While the top Republican candidates refuse to touch the issue of Barack Obama’s eligibility, at least four are eagerly seeking the endorsement” of Arpaio.

The site adds that Arpaio told Choose Liberty participants on Saturday “that his ‘Cold Case Posse‘ probe examining the president’s qualification for his state’s 2012 ballot is in full swing.”

Americans for Prosperity, which helped organize Choose Liberty, “is an organization of grassroots leaders who engage citizens in the name of limited government and free markets on the local, state, and federal levels.” The group has received millions of dollars from the controversial Koch brothers.

Watch coverage of the event:

Sheriff Joe Arpaio Heckled in Florida: MyFoxPHOENIX.com

Update:

Watch more video of the scuffle here.

Pembroke Pines Mayor Frank Ortis said at a recent community forum that his city does not have a vote in the decision to build a proposed immigration detention center in his area, but PolitiFact Florida rates his claim “mostly false.”

PolitiFact writes that the town of Southwest Ranches

penned the deal with the prison operator, and Pines didn’t get an up or down vote on whether the facility should be built. But it’s not as if Pines has been in the dark here. Ortis, along with the rest of the commission, voted to provide services to the prison in 2011. We rate this claim Mostly False.

In June, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (aka ICE) selected the Southwest Ranches/Corrections Corporation of America (known as CCA) proposal to build a 1,500 bed immigration detention center. The town of Southwest Ranches is a neighbor to Pembroke Pines.

Residents of Pembroke Pines and the town of Southwest Ranches have voiced opposition to the federally funded and privately managed detention center. Citizens have even called for the resignation of Southwest Ranches Mayor Jeff Nelson, a vocal supporter of the detention center.

PolitiFact writes: “Ortis, first elected as a commissioner in 1996 and mayor in 2004, ingratiated himself with the angry opponents of the prison. But was he correct to state that Pembroke Pines doesn’t have a vote in the project?”

The site adds that while Ortis has been mayor, the city commission of Pembroke Pines has issued key votes on the detention center at least four times from 2005 through 2011.

At one of those commission votes, Ortis voted to approve an agreement in which Pembroke Pines would provide fire department and emergency rescue services as well as water and sewage to the detention center. In October the commission approved a motion to renegotiate that contract.

Pembroke Pines Vice Mayor Iris Siple proposed the motion to renegotiate because residents were not given the chance to discuss language that obligates Pembroke Pines to supply water and sewage to the detention center.

PolitiFact adds that, when asked why Ortis said the city did not have a vote in the approval of the detention center, the mayor “stood by his comments at the meeting and explained that the city of Pembroke Pines doesn’t get a vote on whether the jail facility should be built.”

PEACE — a coalition of 27 religious congregations from Palm Beach County — met this week with Palm Beach County Commissioner Shelley Vana, who said she would bring up wage theft for discussion in December.

PEACE has urged the county commission to pass an anti-wage theft ordinance similar to the one Miami-Dade County put in place in early 2010. The county commission decided in June to delay discussing the ordinance until 2012. The Legal Aid Society of Palm Beach County was chosen to deal with current wage theft cases.

The South Florida Sun Sentinel reports that “Vana said she was ‘concerned’ about the Legal Aid Society’s results,” adding that “what we are doing right now doesn’t seem to have the desired effect.”

PEACE released its study comparing the results of wage theft claims in Miami-Dade and Palm Beach two days after state Rep. Tom Goodson, R-Titusville, and state Sen. David Simmons, R-Altamont Springs, filed a bill to prohibit Florida municipalities from “adopting or maintaining” local ordinances that crack down on wage theft.

The Legal Aid Society of Palm Beach County and the Department of Small Business Development of Miami-Dade County, which handle wage theft cases in their respective counties, provided the data for the study.

The analysis shows that:

• Miami-Dade had a 74 percent intake average; Palm Beach’s was 54 percent. (Intake refers to the percentage of wage theft cases accepted by a program.)
• Miami-Dade resolved 45 percent of its cases through conciliation; Palm Beach resolved 17 percent through conciliation.
• Palm Beach recovered 2.5 percent of the claim dollars through conciliation; Miami-Dade recovered 45 percent of claim dollars through conciliation.
• Palm Beach county had zero cases resolved in the adjudication phase (pro-bono attorneys handle these cases in civil court); 149 cases have been resolved in this phase in Miami-Dade.

The Sun Sentinel adds that John Foley, a supervising attorney at Legal Aid Society, ”acknowledges that its reliance on volunteer attorneys to resolve wage-theft cases hasn’t been as successful as hoped.”

Mazzella tells the Independent that PEACE and Vana agree that the Legal Aid Program does not work, and that the bills filed at the state level are “not a valid approach,” but are “more of a political approach.”

If those bills pass, “it would be worse because there would no be no hope for a local remedy” to wage theft, Mazzella says.

Read the full comparison study:

Comparison Study Final Oct 24_ 2011

The resolution to disapprove the Federal Communications Commission’s net neutrality rules was defeated in the U.S. Senate today.

The resolution would have repealed the net neutrality rules issued last year by the FCC that go into effect this month. Net neutrality is the idea that consumers should have access to all Internet content and services, not limited by Internet service providers “that want to treat them differently so they can charge you more depending on what you use.”

Marco Rubio, R-Fla. voted for repeal while Bill Nelson, D-Fla., voted against it. The overall vote went along party lines, with 46 Repubican senators voting yes and all 52 Democrats voting not to support the resolution.

Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas, sponsored the resolution of disapproval in the Senate. The House version of this resolution was approved in April.

Democrat John Rockefeller — chairman of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation — issued the following statement after the Senate vote:

I am pleased that the Senate voted down this misguided resolution. By keeping the Open Internet rules in place, we can protect consumers, inspire innovation, and foster investment in the broadband economy. These rules are the product of hard work, consensus, and compromise. During this process, the agency received written input from more than 100,000 commenters, 90 percent of which supported adoption of the Open Internet rules. So at the end of the day, the FCC’s light-touch approach to network neutrality prevailed, and that is a good thing.

“Being paid for one’s labor is such a fundamental point of our whole economic system,” says Peter Mazzella, a deacon at the Holy Name of Jesus Catholic Church and a member of PEACE. “And if that doesn’t happen, or it isn’t happening, the whole structure starts to fall apart.”

PEACE supports a proposed ordinance to combat wage theft, and has been urging the Palm Beach County Commission to move ahead with the measure.

A similar ordinance approved in 2010 by the Miami-Dade County Commission created a resolution process for wage theft claims outside of court. Supporters of the measure say it can help prevent employers from cheating workers out of pay they are owed by allowing workers to make claims without having to hire a lawyer.

State Rep. Tom Goodson, R-Titusville, proposed a bill in the 2011 legislative session that would do away with the Miami-Dade ordinance and any others like it. The bill, which did not pass, was supported by the Florida Retail Federation, which has a pending court challenge against the Miami-Dade measure, and Associated Builders and Contractors.

State Sen. David Simmons, R-Altamonte Springs, today revived that legislation.

According to PEACE, since February 2010 the Miami-Dade department that oversees and enforces the anti-wage theft ordinance “has conciliated and recovered over $160,000 in back wages and has awarded nearly $420,000 in back wages to workers through administrative hearings.”

PEACE organized the Monday night meeting to ask state senators and representatives three questions:

• Do you agree that it’s fair for workers to get paid for work they have done?
• If a bill preempting a local wage theft ordinance comes before you, will you vote against it?
• Will you write letters to Palm Beach County commissioners calling on them to pass a countywide anti-wage theft ordinance?

State Rep. Irving Slosberg, D-Boca Raton, answered yes to the three questions. Abby Ross, a legislative aid for state Rep. Lori Berman,D-Delray Beach, said Berman answered yes to questions one and two, but was still undecided on No. 3.

According to Mazzella, on Wednesday PEACE will meet with Palm Beach County Commissioner Shelley Vana to discuss the advantages of implementing the anti-wage theft ordinance and to get the issue on the commission’s agenda by December.

Rev. Kevin Jones told the audience at Monday night’s meeting that support from Slosberg and Berman is very important, “but we have to notice the 17 empty chairs,” refering to the absence of many state senators and representatives.

“We have to let them know we are not going away,” Jones said. “They need to represent us and not the Florida Retail Federation.”

State Sen. David Simmons, R-Altamonte Springs, today filed a bill to prohibit Florida municipalities from “adopting or maintaining” local ordinances that crack down on wage theft, the practice of stiffing workers out of money they are owed.

A similar bill filed by state Rep. Tom Goodson, R-Titusville, during the 2011 legislative session would have done away with a Miami-Dade anti-wage theft ordinance passed in 2010 that created a process for workers to recover stolen wages.

Samantha Hunter Padgett, deputy general counsel for the Florida Retail Federation, tells The Florida Independent her organization supports Simmons’ bill because “existing state and federal laws address the issues raised in local wage theft ordinances.”

“We believe existing laws are adequate and provide relief to employees, and due process protections for the employee and employer, and in these economic times to add an additional layer of regulation is both unnecessary and costly,” Padgett says.

“We submitted our ideas to Sen. Simmons but he and his staff drafted the bill,” Padgett tells the Independent. “We had the bill from last year that provided the model and we provided the first suggestions and our input.”

Goodson’s bill, which did not pass, was supported by the Florida Retail Federation, which has a pending court challenge against Miami-Dade’s anti-wage theft ordinance, and Associated Builders and Contractors.

Padgett told the Independent in January that the Retail Federation strongly supported Goodson’s bill, and actually brought the issue to him and assisted him in drafting the measure.

Miami-Dade County Commissioners last week approved a resolution that “opposes state legislation that would preempt Miami-Dade County’s wage theft ordinance,” and a second resolution that “urges the Florida legislature to pass a statewide wage theft law modeled [after] the Miami-Dade county wage theft ordinance.” (Read the full text of the resolutions below.)

The ordinance approved in 2010 by the Miami-Dade County Commission creates a resolution process for wage theft claims outside of the court system. Supporters of the measure say it can help prevent employers from cheating workers out of pay they are owed by allowing workers to make claims without having to hire a lawyer.

According to his online bio, Simmons has earned the “Florida Workers’ Advocates’ Legislator of the Year Award” and the “Outstanding Legislator on Behalf of Workers’ Rights Award.”

Simmons’ bill:
Anti-wage theft ordinance preemption –

The Miami-Dade resolutions:

statewide

The AIDS Drug Assistance Program (known as ADAP) provides medications for the treatment of HIV and AIDS for people who cannot afford to pay because they are unemployed, uninsured or underinsured. States have implemented a variety of cost containment measures that include waiting lists since 2010, when an ADAPs began facing an ongoing funding crisis.

According to the National Alliance of State and Territorial AIDS Directors (known as NASTAD), as of Nov. 3, there are almost 6,500 individuals in 12 states on an ADAP waiting list.

NASTAD adds: “Since the release of final FY2011 Ryan White grant awards in September, including $40 million in ADAP emergency relief funding for states with waiting lists or other cost-containment measures in place, some ADAPs have been able to reduce the overall number of individuals on their waiting list.”

Several HIV/AIDS advocates told The Florida Independent last week that the Sunshine State has received a number of increases worth about $7 million in funding for Ryan White, the federal program that manages ADAP dollars, but they also predicted that the number of people on the ADAP waiting list will eventually rise again.

NASTAD noted late last week that “as states remove individuals from their waiting lists, they are adding new individuals to their program. The demand for ADAP has not dwindled and ADAP waiting lists will begin to plateau and then grow, again, in the coming months.”

NASTAD concludes that AIDS Drug Assistance Programs “without any cost-containment measures currently in place, as a result of stagnant federal and state funding … are beginning to anticipate the need for cost-containment measures, and waiting lists, in the upcoming grant year (beginning April 1, 2012).”

Worried about security, property values and traffic control, residents booed and interrupted Jeff Nelson, mayor of the town of Southwest Ranches, when he offered details about the detention facility and the lot where it would be built.

Residents of Pembroke Pines and the town of Southwest Ranches have voiced opposition to the federally funded and privately managed detention center since Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) announced it had chosen the Southwest Ranches/Corrections Corporation of America proposal in June. Citizens have even called for the resignation of Mayor Nelson.

Nelson said Saturday that the detention center had been publicly discussed but residents yelled that was not true. Former Attorney General Bob Butterworth, who facilitated the meeting, called for residents to let the mayor finish his presentation.

Nelson added that the project will add 1,000 temporary jobs and about 250 permanent jobs for area residents.

Gary Mead — executive associate director of enforcement and removal operations for ICE — told residents they had decided a little over a year ago that “we could have another dedicated facility in Florida.”

Mead said they selected the Southwest Ranches/CCA proposal and are now “moving that forward” and working on the final details of the facility, which would hold about 1,400 detainees. He added that the facility was well located for ICE field offices, immigration judges and the transportation of detainees.

Residents once again rejected the proposal, shouting that its location was not good for their homes, children and schools.

Tony L. Grande, executive vice president and chief development officer for CCA, told residents, “We’ve been looking forward to this opportunity to share information and dispel misinformation.”

When Grande concluded by saying that “this has been the result of many many years of deliberation, ” a resident yelled, “This discussion should have happened before a decision was made!”

Pembroke Pines residents have argued they were kept out of specific agreements between Southwest Ranches officials and their city, and have demanded those agreements be rescinded. During the meeting, they insisted that the Southwest Ranches mayor does not represent them.

Pembroke Pines signed an agreement in June to supply fire, rescue, water and sewage services to the immigration detention center, set to be built on land owned by CCA and surrounded by Pembroke Pines and unincorporated Broward County.

Pembroke Pines Vice Mayor Iris Siple said at the Saturday meeting she will ask the city commission to cancel this agreement.

Lucibeth Mayberry, vice president and deputy chief development officer for CCA, told residents her company complied with ICE’s requirements, and were selected for this detention center, but “until Wednesday or Thursday of this week we didn’t have the details we are here to share today.”

Mayberry also clarified that CCA will pay $1.5 million in property taxes to Southwest Ranches, and that once they build the detention center they will not have an agricultural tax exemption. “Facilities of this type do not affect property [values],” she added.

Steven Conry, vice president of facility operations for CCA, said his company works with the community, law enforcement and first responders. He added they have performed studies and are ready for traffic control, adding that their experience shows that CCA detention facilities do not have an impact on emergency medical services.

ICE’s Mead said their facilities have full medical services that operate around the clock.

“This is what happens when you don’t go to the people first,” said Pembroke Pines Mayor Frank Ortis, explaining the vocal opposition to the new detention center while admitting that the facility is a “Southwest Ranches issue.” Residents cheered and rose to their feet. “If this becomes a reality we will become a jail town,” Ortis said.